In order to better serve a prospective automobile buyer, both new and used selling car dealers often must be willing to accept a trade-in vehicle from the prospective buyer or risk losing that prospective buyer to a competitor. Unfortunately, some trade-in vehicles are a particular make and model that are unfamiliar to the selling car dealer. To provide the prospective buyer with a trade-in value, the selling car dealer must either guess at an appropriate trade-in value of the trade-in vehicle, ascertain a general value of the trade-in vehicle as published in a "blue book" or contact a competitor which is familiar with the value of that type of make, model and year of the vehicle.
Each of these options has drawbacks for the selling car dealer. Guessing at the value of the trade-in vehicle usually results in one of two outcomes. Either too high of a value afforded to the trade-in vehicle results in loss of income to the dealer or too low of a value discourages the prospective customer who might shop for a new vehicle elsewhere. The "blue book" provides only a generalized value of the trade-in vehicle. Also, a subscription to the current "blue book" is expensive and the "blue book" becomes obsolete within a short period of time. Contacting a competitor is time consuming and often frustrating because even if the competitor extends the courtesy of returning a telephone call to provide an appropriate trade-in value figure, it might be hours or even days after the prospective customer has already left the selling dealer's premises. Further, the competitor is typically providing only his best estimate of the trade-in value of the trade-in vehicle and not often is the competitor interested in tendering a buy figure for the purpose of purchasing the trade-in vehicle from the selling dealer.
After the selling dealer sells the customer a new or used car, the trade-in vehicle can either be placed on the used or "pre-owned" car lot of the selling dealer for resale, taken and sold at an automobile auction or sold to an automobile wholesaler. When the trade-in vehicle fails to sell within a set period of time, for example, ninety (90) days, the selling dealer would most likely remove the vehicle from the used car lot and either deliver it to an automobile auction or sell it to a wholesaler to maintain a fresh inventory of used cars. Typically, the wholesaler dictates the purchase price of the trade-in vehicle which the wholesaler is willing to pay. Sometimes this results in a financial loss to the selling dealer.
Occasionally, an unscrupulous used car manager might accept monetary "kickbacks" from a wholesaler for selling car lot vehicles unwanted by the selling dealer to the wholesaler at an exceptionally low price. Such an exceptionally low price results in further financial loss to the selling dealer.
There is a need in the automobile sales industry to provide a vehicle exchange system whereby a selling dealer can rapidly and conveniently sell or obtain sales price information on used or trade-in motor vehicles. It would be beneficial if a prospective customer of the selling dealer remains on the premises while bids or sales price information are being solicited and obtained from other automobile dealers. There is also a need in the automobile sales industry to provide a vehicle data exchange system whereby users to the vehicle data exchange system can rapidly and conveniently provide a firm buy figure to the selling dealer offering the trade-in vehicle of the prospective customer. It would be beneficial to selling dealers to minimize the use of automobile wholesalers in order to obtain the maximum dollar amount for the trade-in vehicle from those users of the vehicular data exchange system.